Historical
1 This is a prophecy about Ninveh, the book of the vision of Nachum the Elkoshi:
2 Adonai is a jealous and vengeful God.
Adonai avenges; he knows how to be angry.
Adonai takes vengeance on his foes
and stores up wrath for his enemies.
3 Adonai is slow to anger, but great in power;
and he does not leave the guilty unpunished.
Adonai’s path is in the whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
4 He rebukes the sea and leaves it dry,
he dries up all the rivers.
Bashan and the Karmel languish;
the flower of the L’vanon withers.
5 The mountains quake before him,
and the hills dissolve;
the earth collapses in his presence,
the world and everyone living in it.
6 Who can withstand his fury?
Who can endure his fierce anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
the rocks broken to pieces before him.
7 Adonai is good,
a stronghold in time of trouble;
he takes care of those
who take refuge in him.
8 But with an overwhelming flood
he will make an end of [Ninveh’s] place,
and darkness will pursue his enemies.
9 What are you planning against Adonai?
He is making an end [of it];
trouble will not arise a second time.
10 For like men drunk with liquor,
they will be burned up like tangled thorns,
like straw completely dry.
11 Out of you, [Ninveh,] he came,
one who plots evil against Adonai,
who counsels wickedness.
12 Here is what Adonai says:
“Though they be many and strong,
they will be cut down, they will pass;
and though I have made you suffer,
I will make you suffer no more.
13 Now I will break his yoke from your necks
and snap the chains that bind you.
14 Adonai gave this order concerning you:
you will have no descendants to bear your name;
from the house of your god I will cut off
carved image and cast metal image;
I will prepare your grave,
because you are worthless.”
2 (1:15) Look! On the mountains are the feet
of him who brings good news, proclaiming shalom.
Keep your festivals, Y’hudah, fulfill your vows;
for B’liya‘al will never pass through you again;
he has been completely destroyed.
2 (1) A destroyer has risen in front of your face;
guard the ramparts, keep watch on the road,
brace yourselves, marshall all your strength.
3 (2) For Adonai is restoring the pride of Ya‘akov,
along with the pride of Isra’el;
because plunderers have plundered them
and ravaged their vines.
4 (3) The shields of [Ninveh’s] warriors are [dyed] red;
the soldiers are wearing scarlet.
The steel of the chariots flashes like fire
as they prepare for battle.
The cypress [spears] are poisoned.
5 (4) The chariots rush madly about in the streets,
jostling each other in the open places;
their appearance is like torches,
they run here and there like lightning.
6 (5) [The king of Ninveh] assigns his officers;
they stumble as they march;
they hurry to its wall and set up shields
to protect the battering ram.
7 (6) The gates of the rivers are opened,
and the palace melts away.
8 (7) Its mistress is stripped and carried away;
her handmaids moan, they sound like doves,
as they beat their breasts.
9 (8) Ninveh is like a pool whose water ebbs away.
“Stop! Stop!” But none of it goes back.
10 (9) Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold!
There is no end to the treasure,
weighed down with precious things.
11 (10) She is void, vacant; she is made bare.
Hearts are melting, knees are knocking;
every stomach is churning,
every face is drained of color.
12 (11) What has become of the lion’s den,
the cave where the young lions fed,
where lion and lioness walked with their cubs,
and no one made them afraid?
13 (12) The lion would tear up food for his cubs
and strangle prey for his lionesses;
he used to fill his caves with prey,
his lairs with torn flesh.
14 (13) “I am against you,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.
“Her chariots I will send up in smoke,
the sword will consume your lion cubs,
I will destroy your prey from the earth,
and your envoys’ voices will be heard no more.”
3 Woe to the city of blood, steeped in lies,
full of prey, with no end to the plunder!
2 The crack of the whip! The rattle of wheels!
Galloping horses, jolting chariots,
3 cavalry charging, swords flashing,
spears glittering —
and hosts of slain, heaps of bodies;
there is no end to the corpses;
they stumble over their corpses.
4 “Because of the continual whoring of this whore,
this alluring mistress of sorcery,
who sells nations with her whoring
and families with her sorcery;
5 I am against you,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.
“I will uncover your skirts on your face;
I will show the nations your private parts
and the kingdoms your shame.
6 I will pelt you with disgusting filth,
disgrace you and make a spectacle of you.
7 Then all who see you will recoil from you;
they will say, ‘Ninveh is destroyed!’
Who will mourn for her?
Where can I find people to comfort you?”
8 Are you any better than No-Amon,
located among the streams of the Nile,
with water all around her,
the flood her wall of defense?
9 Ethiopia and Egypt gave her boundless strength,
Put and Luvim were there to help you.
10 Still she went captive into exile,
her infants torn to pieces at every streetcorner.
Lots were drawn for her nobles,
and all her great men were bound in chains.
11 You too, [Ninveh,] will be drunk;
your senses completely overcome.
You too will seek a refuge
from the enemy.
12 All your fortifications will be
like fig trees with early ripening figs;
the moment they are shaken, they fall
into the mouth of the eater.
13 Look at your troops! They behave like women!
Your country’s gates are wide open to your foes;
fire has consumed their bars.
14 Draw water for the siege!
Strengthen your fortifications!
Go down in the clay, tread the mortar,
Take hold of the mold for bricks!
15 There the fire will burn you up;
and the sword will cut you down;
it will devour you like grasshoppers.
Make yourselves as many as grasshoppers,
Make yourselves as many as locusts!
16 You had more merchants than stars in the sky.
The locust sheds its skin and flies away.
17 Your guards are like grasshoppers,
your marshals like swarms of locusts,
which settle on the walls on a cold day,
but when the sun rises they fly away;
they vanish to no one knows where.
18 Your shepherds are slumbering, king of Ashur.
Your leaders are asleep.
Your people are scattered all over the mountains,
with no one to round them up.
19 Your wound cannot be healed.
Your injury is fatal.
Everyone hearing the news about you
claps his hands in joy over you.
For who has not been overwhelmed
by your relentless cruelty?
1 This is the prophecy which Havakuk the prophet saw:
2 Adonai, how long must I cry
without your hearing?
“Violence!” I cry to you,
but you don’t save.
3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing,
why do you permit oppression?
Pillage and cruelty confront me,
so that strife and discord prevail.
4 Therefore Torah is not followed;
justice never gets rendered,
because the wicked fence in the righteous.
This is why justice comes out perverted.
5 “Look around among the nations!
What you see will completely astound you!
For what is going to be done in your days
you will not believe, even when you are told.
6 I am raising up the Kasdim,
that bitter and impetuous nation,
who march far and wide over the earth
to seize homes that are not their own.
7 Fearsome and dreadful they are;
their rules and strength come from themselves.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,
fiercer than wolves at night.
Their cavalry gallop in from afar,
flying like vultures rushing to feed.
9 All of them come for violence,
their faces set eagerly forward,
scooping up captives like sand.
10 They scoff at kings;
princes they deride.
They laugh at any fortress;
they pile up earth and take it.
11 Then they sweep on like the wind,
but they become guilty,
because they make their strength their god.”
12 Adonai, haven’t you existed forever?
My God, my holy one, we will not die.
Adonai, you appointed them to execute judgment.
Rock, you commissioned them to correct us.
13 Your eyes are too pure to see evil,
you cannot countenance oppression.
So why do you countenance traitors?
Why are you silent when evil people
swallow up those more righteous than they?
14 You make people like fish in the sea,
like reptiles that have no ruler.
15 The evil haul them all up with their hooks,
catch them in their fish net,
or gather them in their dragnet.
Then they rejoice and make merry,
16 offering sacrifices to their fishnet
and burning incense to their dragnet;
because through them they live in luxury,
with plenty of food to eat.
17 Should they, therefore, keep emptying their nets?
Should they keep slaughtering the nations without pity?
2 I will stand at my watchpost;
I will station myself on the rampart.
I will look to see what [God] will say through me
and what I will answer when I am reproved.
2 Then Adonai answered me; he said,
“Write down the vision clearly on tablets,
so that even a runner can read it.
3 For the vision is meant for its appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and it does not lie.
It may take a while, but wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.
4 “Look at the proud: he is inwardly not upright;
but the righteous will attain life through trusting faithfulness.
5 Truly, wine is treacherous;
the arrogant will not live at peace
but keeps expanding his desires like Sh’ol;
like death, he can never be satisfied;
he keeps collecting all the nations for himself,
rallying to himself all the peoples.
6 Won’t all these take up taunting him
and say about him, in mocking riddles,
‘Woe to him who amasses other people’s wealth! —
how long must it go on? —
and to him who adds to himself the weight
of goods taken in pledge!
7 Won’t your own creditors suddenly stand,
won’t those who make you tremble wake up?
You will become their spoil.
8 Because you plundered many nations,
all the rest of the peoples will plunder you;
because of the bloodshed and violence done
to the land, the city and all who live there.
9 “‘Woe to him who seeks unjust gain for his household,
putting his nest on the heights,
in order to be safe from the reach of harm.
10 By scheming to destroy many peoples,
you have brought shame to your house
and forfeited your life.
11 For the very stones will cry out from the wall,
and a beam in the framework will answer them.
12 “‘Woe to him who builds a city with blood
and founds a town on injustice,
13 so that people toil for what will be burned up,
and nations exhaust themselves to no purpose.
Isn’t all this from Adonai-Tzva’ot?
14 For the earth will be as full
of the knowledge of Adonai’s glory
as water covering the sea.
15 “‘Woe to him who has his neighbor drink,
adds his own poison and makes him drunk,
in order to see him naked.
16 You are filled with shame, not glory.
You, drink too, and stagger!
The cup of Adonai’s right hand
will be turned against you;
your shame will exceed your glory.
17 For the violence done to the L’vanon
will overwhelm you,
and the destruction of the wild animals
will terrify you;
because of the bloodshed and violence done
to the land, the city and all who live there.’”
18 What good is an idol, once its maker has shaped it,
a cast metal image and a teacher of lies,
that its maker puts his trust in it,
and goes on making non-gods, unable to talk?
19 Woe to him who tells a piece of wood, “Wake up!”
or a speechless stone, “Rouse yourself!”
Can this thing teach? Why, it’s covered with gold and silver,
without the slightest breath in it!
20 But Adonai is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him.
3 This is a prayer of Havakuk the prophet about mistakes:
2 Adonai, I have heard the report about you.
Adonai, I am awed by your deeds.
Bring your work to life in our own age,
make it known in our own time;
but in anger, remember compassion.
3 God comes from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Pa’ran. (Selah)
His splendor covers the sky,
and his praise fills the earth.
4 His brightness is like the sun,
rays come forth from his hand —
that is where his power is concealed.
5 Before him goes pestilence,
and close behind, the plague.
6 When he stands up, the earth shakes;
when he looks, the nations tremble,
the eternal mountains are smashed to pieces,
the ancient hills sink down;
the ancient paths are his.
7 I saw trouble in the tents of Kushan
and the tent hangings shaking in the land of Midyan.
8 Adonai, is it against the rivers,
against the rivers that your anger is inflamed?
Is your fury directed at the sea?
Is that why you ride on your horses,
and drive your chariots to victory?
9 You brandish your naked bow
and order it filled with arrows. (Selah)
You split the earth with rivers.
10 The mountains see you and tremble;
a torrent of water streams by;
the deep thunders forth,
as it raises enormous waves.
11 The sun and moon stand still in the sky
at the light of your arrows speeding by,
at the gleam of your glittering spear.
12 In fury you stride across the land,
in anger you trample the nations.
13 You come out to save your people,
to save your anointed one;
you crush the head of the house of the wicked,
uncovering its foundation all the way to the neck.
14 With their own rods you pierce the head of their warriors,
who come like a whirlwind to scatter us,
who rejoice at the prospect
of devouring the poor in secret.
15 You tread down the sea with your horses,
churning up the mighty waters.
16 When I heard, my whole body trembled,
my lips shook at the sound;
weakness overcame my limbs,
my legs gave way beneath me.
But I wait calmly for the day of trouble,
when it comes upon our assailants.
17 For even if the fig tree doesn’t blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines,
even if the olive tree fails to produce,
and the fields yield no food at all,
even if the sheep vanish from the sheep pen,
and there are no cows in the stalls;
18 still, I will rejoice in Adonai,
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
19 Elohim Adonai is my strength!
He makes me swift and sure-footed as a deer
and enables me to stride over my high places.
For the leader. With my stringed instruments.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.